The good news is Gov. Tom Corbett's proposed 2013-14 budget will increase spending by 2.4 percent, Monroe County social services officials were told Wednesday.

The bad news is that this doesn't begin to restore cuts of the previous two fiscal years — funding that has to be made up locally to fight increasing poverty, local social services providers said.

"We can't go back to the well over and over again and ask for more (local) money," said Faith Waters of Family Promise of Monroe County, which provides housing for the homeless. "Because we're getting a tremendous amount from our community."

Waters was one of three officials from nonprofit agencies who talked about program challenges during a forum at Shawnee Inn, sponsored by United Way. Their discussion followed a budget presentation by Pete Tartline, deputy secretary of the state Budget Office.

Waters talked about continuing difficulties in finding housing for an elderly homeless man who lives under a truck cab, under a bridge. Family Promise helped the man sign up for Social Security to qualify for housing assistance. Then they succeeded last week in moving the man to the top of a waiting list for public housing, only to learn he still has a six-to-eight-month wait before a place opens up.

"I started to cry because I thought I was giving him hope," Waters said.

There are 300 housing units available, but 2,400 low-income residents on the waiting list, she said.

Waters talked about another homeless man who is intellectually disabled. They are trying to get the man needed dental care, she said, but first they had to obtain a birth certificate. For that he needed a credit card. Then he needed an identification card.

"We have to ask other members of the homeless community to watch over him," Waters said.

Budget cuts have a cascading negative impact, said Pocono Alliance Executive Michael Tukeva. Reduced subsidies for daycare threaten the ability of the working poor to keep a job.

"We're getting less money and we're getting more people with more need as a result of it," Tukeva said. "They want to propel themselves, have a future."

Some 62 percent of low-income residents who completed Bridges Out of Poverty, a five-month Pocono Alliance program to train people to better help themselves, have enrolled in higher education, he said.

"You've got to protect those safety net areas," Maj. James Gingrich of The Salvation Army said. Otherwise, "you're going to spend money in other areas like prisons and the criminal justice system."

Senior citizens now account for more than half those who take part in local Salvation Army food programs, Gingrich said. Overall food costs are up 48 percent since 2009 and heating costs are up 64 percent, but Social Security payments have remained static, he said.

About 69 percent of agencies that receive United Way funding statewide sustained funding cuts this year, Pennsylvania United Way President Tony Ross said, and 76 percent report increased demand for services.